Guild Wars 2

Read the subject and couldn’t decide if it was going to be a thief or a warrior.

No thankyou. Condi coverage is already plenty fine as it is.

lordkrall.7241:

Do people really prefer the need to use 6 transmutations charges everytime they change/upgrade their armor in order to keep the look with them?

You’re basically sacrificing quality for convenience by doing that.

Trigr.6481:

Nothing really to type out this time, just watch the video and let me know what you think.

i think you have a solution that’s looking for a problem

i was hoping you would actually have some interesting thoughts on skill balance but you just say “but they have to be filtered through PvE and WvW”

but ‘filtering’ for PvE balance is not hard at all; PvE balancing is 90% mob strength, 10% player output balancing. players dealing too much damage, increase mob hp. players dying too quickly, change boss mechanics. very few skills that actually matter for PvE, and they’ve created breakbars explicitly so they can ignore mass control/blind effect skills. if you’re saying that PvP sux because breakbars exist in PvE then… well you have an interesting pov

and most of the changes that they make for WvW are systemic, not oriented around skills; the most recent ones include the stability processing change (which only significantly affects a few small number of skills, basically just the rev staff 5) and the rally change (only actually has an effect in wvw)

like if you had something to say about why skills get nuked into junk, like maybe if you took an actual example of a skill that the devs chip down through these filters, then maybe we’d have something interesting

I use Power MM Reaper

Death top line
Blood bottom/mid/bottom
Reaper top line

Axe/horn, Greatsword
Zerker’s gear

Stick “Rise!” onto your bar and then fill the rest of the slots with your favorite minions. Minions have enough toughness to hold aggro from you and they take almost no damage from AoE attacks.

The greatsword will put out massive damage. You may want to swap the axe with a dagger but personally I prefer the axe just for a bit of kiting ability.

Thorg.6809:

Conditions are so fun, but they’re really weak in any group bigger than 5.

Maybe the change with the popup numbers will also indicate some backend changes. I’m not sure but I guess we can hope, eh?

AndrewSX.3794:

It’s just the overflow of the PvE and AP hunter masses.

When they’ve got their achievements or new shiny PvE LS comes out, you’ll see how number drops.

This really depends on the retention rate. Even if there’s a 15-25% conversion rate from “never WvWs” to “WvWs quite a bit”, that’s a pretty significant population boost, and a shot in the arm that WvW really needs.

Not to mention there will probably be future seasons and possibly other WvW events if the leagues are popular according to metrics.

Daily achievements/crafting/gathering, at the moment. The game’s quite quiet. Waiting on the next content dump.

wait guys
wait
wait
guys
stop

wait

does this mean we’ll be able to buy a SUPER ADVENTURE BOX?

Muchacho.2390:

Sorry but i dont think Anet will ever change armor classes with e-specs. So every of our future e-specs will be light armored.

I honestly like the idea of changing armor class with especs but I don’t think it’s very realistic at all. There’s likely a lot of backend changes that would need to be made for relatively little return.

Your might generation will be enough to fill your party with 25 might 100% uptime and to send some might cross-party through multi-target Shade Savant.

Barriers are an insanely strong mechanic and Scourges will have the best access to Barriers.

I don’t think Scourge will be amazing in raids, I know they will.

Ohoni.6057:

no, and who cares about that

ermmm

well you have quite a few people disagreeing with you here

It’s the bad kind of compromise.

The point of the track is so that you don’t have to finish it once and then never return like the rank 14 did. You’re supposed to do the track once for each gift.

Ferever.7014:

Yes I’m not a SPVP player ,but someone told me once before this system is already existent in this game and I agree. Also if I may ask can you provide an example of how it will limit experimentation so I can get a better understanding for your point of view.

You just can’t mix and match skills which may or may not improve your effectiveness(which is the experiment). I’ll use traits for an example.

Let’s say that, for example, the new set of Grandmaster traits that ANet added in were instead attached to a subclass system. Say, for example, there was an Engineer subclass which revolved around magnets, and you inherently got the turret bubble trait through becoming a Magneteer.

Would this be better or worse than the current situation, which is them as a grandmaster trait? At the moment, you can currently mix that toy with the new toys in the other line; for example, you could grab boon-on-turret and bubble-on-turret and become super turret man; it’s not necessarily viable, but it’s a fun experiment to try and see whether that’ll work. You can do tons of things like this; for example, you could grab the haste-on-knockback GM trait and the fury-on-gadget trait and become some kind of super gadgeteer.

If there are five subclasses, and each only gets one of these tools, then there are a lot of synergies, and places to experiment, which are lost for the change. It becomes a very straightforward decision, but straightforward decisions are not good things to have for encouraging imagination.

I’m reminded of this video.

Johje Holan.4607:

Anet, there is no reason this poll should have a 75% supermajority requirement to make it 2ABL and 1DBL. Its clearly what most people want.

This assertion is self-contradictory. If most people want it, then it should have no trouble achieving the supermajority put forward. Which it has.

Straegen.2938:

or teabag them… that works too.

I usually go with /shrug, I tend to be as confused as they are about why I won

Mushin.3928:

Why not give everyone a 25% movement speed buff in PvP?

Because Swiftness becomes practically pointless

Kossage.9072:

Even if your statement was sarcastic, ironically enough there’s actually a pretty salient argument buried deep within about dungeons being accessible. Ín my opinion dungeon story modes should be soloable because out of all the instanced group content they’ve provided the most crucial lore to GW2 experience about the adventures and eventually re-bonding of Destiny’s Edge (which includes some huge chunks of character development for each DE member; see for example Caithe finally stepping out of the shadow cast by Faolain, or Logan and Rytlock finally forgiving one another) as well as us confronting (and in a select few cases finishing off) key villains from Personal Story such as Caudecus, Kudu, Faolain and Gaheron who would’ve otherwise remained loose ends in lore.

Thankfully at least Arah story mode is soloable now so people don’t have to team up with others to finish their Personal Story if they don’t want to (as dungeon story modes in general seem to attract less people to them nowadays than explorable paths based on what I’ve seen on LFG over the past few years and even in these past few months after the most recent dungeon rewards revamp).

Because fewer players went to experience the dungeon stories, they missed not only important moments with said villains but also failed to bond with Destiny’s Edge during their trials and tribulations, which hurt the narrative on their side especially for that big payoff later in the Personal Story. Luckily the same is not the case with raid lore thanks to Bobby’s statement that any crucial information learned from raids will be delivered to players via other means in Living World season(s) and whatnot if needed, so the developers have learned their lesson about what lore to gate behind group content and what to keep more accessible to players.

Actually an interesting point. It’s really worth looking into how story dungeons currently operate since the main mechanical functions they provide are reward track unlocks and unlocking explorable, both things which don’t need to be done more than once.

Personally I’d think it a good move to make these modes single-player, and possibly a formal part of the personal story.

Actually, just had a thought

10 supply kit which creates a bomb which does heavy siege damage and applies vulnerability

alemfi.5107:

https://youtu.be/EitZRLt2G3w
Some people consider this good design practice

It is a subjective how accessible success should be how low the skill floor should be.

I think I’ve watched this video before so forgive me if it’s covered in the video but

It’s pretty important to keep in mind that GW2 is a team game with discrete roles. It’s very easy to think that the game “doesn’t require enough skill” when you are in a matchup where your role does not match up well against the enemy or enemies’ role. That doesn’t necessarily mean that skill the skill floor or skill cap are too low.

Darkobra.6439:

My prediction is your disappointment.

A wonderful birthday gift, to be sure.

I’m not gonna get my hopes up, but a second feature pack announcement would be pretty cool.

Rednik.3809:

Raids are repeatable content, and repeatable content is a staple that keeps any MMO alive. So more quality repeatable content is always good.

But extra difficulty modes are not quality repeatable content.

Raiders don’t want more difficulty levels to raid in. They want more raids.
Non-raiders don’t want watered down raids. They want non-raid content.

TheDevice.2751:

Oh i forgot the metaslave tactic to run cb and splash conditions everywhere by taking a nap on my keyboard.

Necromancers are the epitome of passive play so long as MM and condi are their only place in the meta (since forever).

Dude if you toss out your best tools because “they are meta” you only have yourself to blame.

Supreme.3164:

Ironically Tempest meta is what is keeping many other specs from being nerfed

With no more aoe protection/heal/condi clear…all who talk now will see their dear spec being nerfed hard, as everybody would start abusing the kitten out of reaper/DH and the rest.

Powercreep has been a massive issue with this expansion and balancing the broad majority of new specs added in the expansion downwards sounds like a very good idea.

I love the irony of thread necromancy on a thread about Rise!.

Leablo.2651:

Notice how Colin snuck in the “China” qualifier? VIP system for the west confirmed.

this is why we get developers leashed by PR reps

pls no

ButterPeanut.9746:

This was my point exactly. The LS3 community and the community that would benefit most from"easy mode raids" overlap much more than the current raiding community. So it would be most fair if the compromises came at the expense of the overlap versus at the expense of the raid content pacing.

I don’t know whether we’re on the same page here but the logic is bad on a basic level because it assumes people who are currently non-raiders would all become raiders with the diversion of resources.

In reality, the vast majority of people who participate in LS content have no intention of touching raids with a 10-foot pole and an ‘easy mode raid’ would likely do absolutely nothing for them. It’s a waste of time and effort. Reducing LS content on the other hand would have a very real reduction in the game’s ability to retain players.

Like I said tho dunno if we’re on the same page, you probably already know this.

why not just balance them

Chaith.8256:

High participation is not going to be achieved (I feel) by restructuring the combat roles, but making it feel rewarding, and prestigious. I think once the patch hits, we’ll return to this and re-evaluate. High participation can be achieved by allowing for an experience which is easy to get in to, for new players. Unfortunately, conquest is extremely hard to master effectively – Still waiting on that answer when it’s best for one to leave close, so the map isn’t 4v5! Regarding conquest:

Just gonna poke in here;

I think that getting people to participate in sPvP is largely a matter of rewards. Average GW2 player probably plays more PvE than sPvP because playing sPvP doesn’t buy you a Legendary and it doesn’t really get you any cool skins until you start pushing Shark at the moment. Hopefully upcoming patch helps to address this.

Relentless.7023:

Mobas are not easy to figure out at all for a new player or someone who hasn’t seen them before, but they can be explained pretty effectively in pre-game and during the game.

I’m not 100% certain what this is supposed to mean.

If you mean someone who has never played or watched a MOBA before will have a difficult time understanding what’s happening in the game? That’s basically every sport ever, and there’s not really any way to get around it.

If you mean a new player entering the game won’t understand what’s going on? LoL (which, as far as I can tell, is top dog), does a fairly good job of teaching you the mechanics with its tutorial, and limiting the amount of information you have to digest at any one time with its levelling system and champ rotation system.

With this in mind, your solution is way too big for the problem. If you want the game to be easier to understand, it needs a more streamlined introduction for new players and it needs to trick new players into thinking they’re good, not a complete overhaul of the combat roles and system.

Relentless.7023:

The community has pretty much fallen apart and many have said that it’s irreparable at this point. New players don’t make teams, they just farm gold and their dailies.

So basically;
the old players have left
the new players don’t matter
let’s completely overhaul the game and see if that reanimates it.

I’m not a game historian so I won’t pretend to be an expert, but I’m very skeptical that this has worked ever.

Mea.5491:

When players’ mentality changes and they realize that DPS is not everything. In other words: never.

What else are you going to gear for? Funs per second?

For better or worse this was an expected consequence of linked servers. Population naturally bleeds out of the servers which are full (TC, BG, YB) and into non-full servers. I’ve been tossing up moving to Kaineng simply because TC is full.

At the end of the day I don’t really care about BG dropping into T2. What I’m more interested in is whether, by the end of the season, T1 will be entirely comprised of linked servers. If guilds are able to move into T1 because of linked servers, it’ll ultimately be a more lively scene.

RodOfDeath.5247:

All I’ve seen from you BG guys in the forums lately is “Bg isn’t playing right now, we on break mode”. Don’t question the ppt.

That’s more or less exactly what I expect from BG. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if ANet has explicitly restructured the server pop status to bias against BG to protect the game against their ‘breaks’.

ZDBioHazard.8246:

Edge cases would be weird too, what would happen in a LS dungeon? Take the aggregate of everyone’s relationship rating? Just be neutral even though everyone might have a 0% or 100% rating? Call out individual players? (Imagine that: “Hey! It’s my favorite person! I’m so glad to… whoa, you’re hanging out with that guy? Really? I hope he dies. I thought you had better standards.” )

At the moment all instances are, I think, derived out of the instance owner as the “main character” and every other party member is more or less just sticking around. Going for multiplayer stuff would be pretty complicated and maybe a bit too ambitious, yeah, so stick with singleplayer stuff and just have instances run off the main party member.

How many people actually go into these living story dungeons as a group? At the moment, personal story completely disregards any players you might have in your party when it comes to dialogue; LS may as well be the same.

Maybe NPCs could have “personality triangle” stats for expected player personality so they notice when you’re acting out of character or have had a major personality shift between chapters? How much dialog should be written for that? (Imagine: Anakin Skywalker shows up for the Marionette battle, and a month later, Darth Vader arrives to stomp Scarlet with force choke or whatever. Would the NPCs notice? Would anyone ask “Wow, what happened to you? That Miasma sure is some bad stuff.” “I talked to a speed boost NPC … a few times. darth vader breathing sound” )

Doesn’t really need that much. When an option is available, have a slight deviation for friends, if the dialogue wouldn’t otherwise make sense.

I’m personally not really expecting an utterly titanic web of interweaving conversation and relationship levels, but a few options. A conversation will probably never cover the entire web of options, but instead have 3-4 options out of the web.

Having a lot of extra dialog would also need more voice acting. I know they don’t really need it, but it always strikes me as odd when NPCs give you a few “silent” paragraphs of text (during which you, and all related NPCs usually stand around motionless, while other players, if present, jump around like baboons yelling “y u stnding arnd??? lts gooooo!!! kick pls!”), then the NPCs suddenly spring to life to deliver some opening line and get on with the show. Needless to say, recording audio for everything would be quite a task, especially considering it would all need to be localized, and can’t forget it also needs to be downloaded and put in the .dat file forever.

I really, really hate voice acting because of how much more expensive it’s become to make dialogue. That said, cutting down on voice acting isn’t too rough; it can be used to cover several dialogue options at once. With Marjory’s question in the current release, for example, she says the same thing no matter which option you pick.

If you ask me, we’re pretty lucky we get what we get, at the cadence we’re seeing updates.

Luck implies that it’s out of our hands and out of ANet’s hands, which is very much not the case. If we want more stuff and better stuff it’s our responsibility to let them know what we want and why we want it.

It is still in the game, however it operates behind the scenes. You can’t see what it’s doing easily.

Oh, y’know what’d be nice for “facilitating friendly play”? Underflows. So we have people to play with, whether friendly or unfriendly.